


A New Clan

by nerdsherpa



Series: A Hole in the Roof: Haleth Lavellan/Commander Cullen [7]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Adoption, Children, Dalish Culture, F/M, Happy Ending, Parenthood, Post-Tresspasser, Qunari Culture and Customs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-22
Updated: 2016-02-22
Packaged: 2018-05-18 12:17:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5928031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nerdsherpa/pseuds/nerdsherpa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It had been a mutual decision. If parenthood, through whatever means, meant wounding each other deeply, it also meant providing an unfit home. Children were out of the question.</p><p>Yet here they were: A lost Dalish child on the doorstep of Skyhold, and silence falling between them like a curtain.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A New Clan

This was not the usual homecoming, but Cullen hadn't realized just how tired Haleth was until she collapsed on their bed half undressed, unceremoniously leaving her treasured mechanical arm in a pile with the rest of her clothing. He shucked his own outer layers and sat down beside her as she curled onto the counterpane, just in her leggings and bindings.

Simply for the comfort of touching her again after two months apart, he spread his fingers over the skin of her back and side. No new scars this time, he noted with satisfaction, no fading bruises. It must have been a quiet social season, for Orlais.

But not entirely quiet. That much had become obvious the moment he'd heard an unexpected voice boom across the busy courtyard — "Pup!" went the shout — and turned to see Hawke whining happily as he danced circles around the legs of the Iron Bull. Naming the dog Hawke, Varric had told him, was the funniest thing Cullen had ever done, had done _to_ him, or been directly involved with.

Bull had thumped his chest with both hands and then caught the enormous dog as it leapt into his arms and began alternatively barking into and licking his face.

Cullen winced as he approached, "Stop that. Training him not to jump on people was enough of a trial without you confusing him."

Bull deposited the wriggling dog back on the ground. "Aww, he knows he's only allowed to do it when his Uncle Iron Bull comes around. Don't you, boy?" On cue, the mabari answered with a resounding woof. "Besides," he continued, wiping his face, "Hawke's the most enthusiastic kisser I've ever met."

Cullen chose not to dignify that with a response and focused instead on making sure the arm Bull used to clasp his in greeting wasn't the one with slobber on it. "Bull, I know Haleth was expecting to run into you in Orlais at some point, but what are the Chargers doing _here_?"

"The Boss asked us to... stick around for a while. We had nothing pressing, so—"

His brow furrowed, "Have the roads been dangerous?"

"No! No. Listen, Curly, before you go talk to the Boss, you should kn—"

But Cullen hadn't heard the end of the sentence, because that was the moment he'd spotted his wife, stepping inside the gates of Skyhold after an absence of two entire months. It had only taken him a few steps to realize he was rushing and to slow down to a pace more befitting the dignity of the Commander of the Inquisition — and to check if anyone would see if he ran his hands through his hair to make sure it was tidy.

Haleth had stopped when Hawke bounded up to her, and Cullen's more sedate pace had made him audience to an odd tableau. Instead of greeting their dog, Haleth commanded him to stop before he reached her, and then to sit. Only when Hawke had done so — body still, but tongue lolling and short tail wiggling — had Cullen noticed the small figure behind her. Haleth had coaxed a rail-thin elven child from his hiding place and made a gentle introduction between him and the mabari.

But as he'd noticed Cullen's approach, the boy had leapt up from stroking a blissful Hawke's belly to take a darting step back to Haleth's side. He'd known then that there was something delicate about this, in the way emotions warred across his wife's face as she met his eyes. In the way she refrained from stepping forward to embrace him.

"Sit, Hawke," he'd told the dog as it leapt to its feet, and, stroking the hound's smooth head, he'd let Haleth make the first move.

"Torrem," she'd said, her good hand on the child's shoulder as she reached out with her prosthesis for his. "This is Cullen. Remember? He's a member of my clan, and my…" The sentence had ended with the formal Dalish word that roughly translated to "husband," but was more literally akin to "mate."

Behind a mop of blonde hair that needed cutting, the boy's wide eyes had lingered on Cullen's sword hilt. Then they'd darted back down.

"I need to spend tonight with him, _da'len_ ," Haleth had continued, a gentle tone covering her anxiety. "I'll see you first thing in the morning, and until then Bull will stay with you the whole time."

When that failed to elicit a reaction, she'd knelt down. "If it's very, very important, you can come find me, like always."

Torrem had finally looked up from the ground and nodded. Then Bull, who'd been waiting nearby with uncharacteristic unobtrusiveness, had swept the boy onto his shoulders in a complicated but clearly practiced motion. "Come on, little squirrel, let's go raid the the kitchens, eh? You too, pup."

Only when Bull was out of line of sight had she thrown herself into Cullen's arms, the words "I'm sorry" tumbling out into his chest.

"For what?" Cullen had said, though he could guess.

"We have to talk."

But she hadn't said a word as they climbed the steps to the great hall, and the tower, and their room. Not while peeling off her belt and bow, slithering out of her leathers and chain, or wearily unbuckling the exquisitely crafted combat prosthesis that she wore for every occasion except the most formal. And she said nothing now, as she lay on her side on their bed, his hand on her back.

He took a deep breath, worried that if the quiet continued too long, he'd forget to break it.

"So, tell me about the Inquisition's newest agent."

She laughed a strange, hitching laugh, and told him. About the urgent tip off from a nameless Red Jenny, too little, too late. The desperate ride of soon-to-be-dashed hopes, with half the Chargers and whoever else was armored and could sit a horse at that time of night. The arrival at the bloody wreckage of a Dalish camp. The men who'd slaughtered the clan still there, silhouettes dark against a fire around the base of a tree. Their faces, craned upwards at something in its branches.

She'd put an arrow in the skull of the tallest one before she even realized she'd drawn her bow.

* * *

Haleth ignored the cold as she stepped through the circle of melting frost and leaned her bow against the trunk at the center of it. As she unslung her quiver and began untying her mail coat, she stared at the singed bark. Staring at the bark meant she didn't wouldn't catch any more of her people pretending not to stare at her, their round-eared faces full of fear, or pity. "Find all the bodies and clear them away from here. I'm going up."

"Aren't those branches a little... _thin_?" Scout Harding's atypically nervous voice.

"Well, someone climbed it." Krem's.

Haleth circled the tree as she unbuckled the straps of her arm, looking for a low branch that hadn't already been snapped off.

"Are we sure? It's so… high." Though she'd lowered her voice, it hadn't been enough.

"Look, Lace," Krem said flatly, "I'm just saying — burning down one tree in a forest is something I'd only need to do if I'd chased somebody into it."

Harding's next word was spoken just on the edge of hearing. "Oh."

Haleth started, realizing that Lace had appeared beside her. "I can keep that safe, if you like, Inquisitor," she said, opening her arms for the bundle of straps and hinges that, for the past few years, had been the only way Haleth could draw a bow. Once the prosthesis was nestled gently in the crook of her arm, Harding tapped her own shoulder and looked straight into Haleth's face without flinching. "Here, ma'am. A leg up."

"Thank you." Haleth returned the look gratefully, laying her own hand on the scout's shoulder for a breath before steadying herself to leap.

It was enough to get her to a low branch and in place to scramble higher. "You heard the Inquisitor!" The dwarf called below. "Pile up the humans there. Lay out the Dalish among the aravels."

Haleth put the clinking armor and grunts of exertion below out of her mind and focused on her own balance, and the rustling above, as she ascended. At the soft mewling sound of sudden pain, she glanced upwards and caught her first good look at her quarry, fleeing further up the tree; dangerously close to the whippy top branches every young climber quickly learns to leave alone.

"All right, _lethallin_!" she called. "I'll stay right here. You don't have to climb any more." After a moment to seat herself on a branch and catch her breath, she spoke again. "All I'd like to do is bring you down from here. It's safe now."

"They're all dead," said the voice at the top of the tree. A child, as she'd suspected. A boy. She couldn't tell if it was a statement about his clan, or a question about their killers.

"Yes," she answered.

The ensuing silence offered little in the way of clarification.

"I've lost my clan, too."

"Huh." Disbelief rang from the single syllable. He was smart, this one.

"I was away, on a task from our Keeper. Bandits began harassing our aravels. Before I could help them," she leaned against the cool bark of the trunk. "Everyone was gone."

"You were alone?" Good. Keep him asking her questions.

She thought about the days when Skyhold was still covered in dust cloths and scaffolding. Spending her mornings discussing the political wants of petty human nobles and her nights tossing and turning in a cold stone room. Learning to wear boots, even in summer. Learning to hide behind her own face. She thought about the day that Josephine, wet-eyed, had asked her to sit down before she read the newest reports. The look on Cullen's face, last to leave the room when she told all three of them that she wanted to be alone, because that was easier than explaining the truth: Their kindly — but above all, human — presence was just a reminder that she already was.

"Yes."

"What did you do?"

"I —" What had she done? She thought about the open excitement in Cassandra's face, the first time she'd asked for a book recommendation. The secret pride in Varric's when she'd told him her favorite parts. Dorian's voice, tired and tinny through the crystal as they leaned on each other for strength. Mia, insisting Haleth teach her how to say "aunt" in elvhen so that her nephew could address her new sister-in-law properly. She thought about Cullen, listening with rapt attention to the story of the hound who defended his master even in dreams, and bit the tail of Fen'Harel.

"I found a new clan," she said. "I… suppose I _made_ a new clan."

"There are _shems_ down there."

"Yes. They're a part of my clan. There are other _elvhen_ in my clan, too, and dwarves. And a spirit. And a qunari."

"What's a... _qunari_?"

"Hmm," she smiled despite herself, "It's sort of like a great big elf, with great big horns. Who does everything I tell him to."

Silence.

"Would you like to come down, now?"

"My hand hurts."

"What if I came up there?"

When there was no response, she began to climb again, the lightening sky making it easier. Before long, she found him, face half smeared with soot, not enough to hide that he hadn't yet grown old enough for _vallaslin_. He cradled his left hand close against his chest, two fingers broken, and watched her approach with a look she recognized from dozens of refugee camps. One which showed that exhaustion had finally won out over fear and pain.

"Hello, _da'len_." She settled on an adjacent branch, but made no move to touch him yet.

"My name is Torrem."

"My name's Haleth."

His eyes widened, drawn to what remained of her left arm. Though she knew it would be greeted with skepticism, disbelief and shock, she'd brought the story of what she'd found in Mythal's temple and beyond the Eluvians to Arlathvhen, and it had doubled the number of religious pilgrims Skyhold received overnight.

"Would you like to come down with me, Torrem?"

He nodded.

* * *

Coaxing Torrem down from the tree had been simple compared to convincing him to allow a healer close to him. He'd clutched at her tight enough that she'd felt the panicked beating of his heart as the mage — a human recruit dragged out of bed to join the ride — slowly and painlessly knit the bones back together.

He'd started awake every night and couldn't fall back to sleep without her there, so she'd let him sleep in her tent. Eventually he would only agree to leave her side if he was allowed to come find her if it was "very, very important." He'd yet to interrupt a diplomatic meeting or a fête, but that modicum of control over their relationship seemed to reassure him, as did the presence of Iron Bull, oddly enough. At her wits end, Haleth had asked Bull if the Chargers could travel along with her procession until they found Torrem a home. Bull had agreed and — much to her annoyance — refused to take the Inquisition's coin for the trouble.

"We tried to find someone to take him, but there were no other clans on our route and the winter's been... No one could take on another hungry mouth, least of all," she spat the words, "a feral Dalish child."

Cullen sighed in understanding, stroking her back.

"He hasn't cried a tear since we found him," she continued, sounding more anxious by the moment. "He's still terrified of humans. Krem has been so tender to him, and Torrem still flinches even when _he_ comes near... What are we going to do?" 

'Children' was an idea they'd discussed at great length in the years after the Exalted Council. In a way, it had been a welcome change of pace to have such a mundane problem to untangle between them. They'd already come to terms with the fact that one of them was a devout Andrastrian and the other had so dedicated her life to the preservation of Dalish culture that she'd willingly become host to a semi-sentient font of _elvhen_ knowledge. They'd already wrestled through the depression Haleth had fallen into after having her arm amputated by the ancient magic of a former friend who had turned out to be a Dalish trickster god bent on destroying the world… sort of.

Ultimately, it was the lessons learned in those years that had informed their decision. Haleth deeply desired to raise children who would become full-fledged members of the Dalish community. So, though she loved Cullen to an extent that she could not describe in words, it was not in her to bear and raise the essentially human children that would result from their intermingled blood. Cullen had always considered a family to be somewhere in his future, a vague vision that he was happy to shape to her wishes. But, with brutal honesty, they both shared fears that an Andrastrian father to adopted Dalish children would be an alien in his own home. Cullen had unlearned many things he'd once thought to be unalterable truth. Turning from the Maker could be the one that utterly undid him.

So he averted his eyes whenever an awestruck Dalish family pushed their little ones forward to meet the woman who'd drunk from the Well of Sorrows, so he wouldn't have to see her face change from longing to guilt as soon as she realized he was watching. And whenever he felt the urge to go around play-fighting with Skyhold's pack of youngsters too strongly, he'd pour the energy into training the new recruits — who were getting younger every day. This was a kind of a legacy, he would tell himself, as he corrected faulty grips and lazy stances. Even if he'd rather be passing on the knowledge in a situation for which the phrase "a father to his men" contained a few too many words.

It had been a mutual decision. Their friends knew better than to bring it up, though Mia had never stopped pestering him about it, and likely never would. That changed nothing. If parenthood, through whatever means, meant wounding each other deeply, it also meant providing an unfit home. Children were out of the question.

Yet here they were: A lost Dalish child on the doorstep of Skyhold, and silence falling between them like a curtain.

Haleth seemed to have finished, having wrung out her anxiety in talking, and so Cullen calmly asked, "Does he want to stay with us?"

"I don't know."

"Do _you_ want him to stay with us?"

She pulled away from him, curling in on herself even more. "I don't know," she whispered.

"You do," he said gently. 

She shut her eyes tightly. "Are you angry with me?"

"What?" He was genuinely bewildered, but only for a moment. "No." He let himself fall to the bed and pulled her into his arms immediately, " _No_ , love, no. I couldn't ask you to have done anything differently."

She wrapped her arms around his, shuddering with relief. "Oh, thank Mythal."

"No, Haleth," he pressed his face into her shoulder. "I'm not angry. _Ma emma lath_." _You are my love_.

"I just — I didn't want you to think that I'd _deliberately_ —"

"I know. Or that I'd been trapped. I understand. I'm not angry."

He held her, feeling the tension seep slowly out of her limbs. _Maker_ , she smelled good. Sweaty, armor-musty, but... Haleth.

She rolled over to look at him, herself again. Solemn, but earnest, no longer hiding or preoccupied. Two months, he remembered. Two months since he'd last seen her face.

"What are we going to do?" she asked him, calm and serious.

He couldn't help himself. He kissed her. She responded eagerly, immediately. They parted sighing. Her fingers had tangled themselves in his collar. He willed his heart to slow its beating and pressed his forehead to hers. "I don't know. I... I should try and get to know him —"

"But he's _terrified_ of —"

"I know. I know."

She sighed. "We won't rush."

He nodded, sliding his hand over the skin of her side. "It's not something that has to be decided tonight. In fact, it's probably better if it _isn't_."

"And, after all," she said slowly, her fingers wrapped securely around the collar of his shirt now, "we haven't touched each other in two months."

"That — that's not the _entirety_ of what I meant. _Hahh_ ," she'd started kissing his neck, "but I can't — can't find fault — in your assessment, of..."

"Shh."

Not nearly enough time later, there was a knock on the door.

" _Surely_ not," he told the inside of her thigh, and she stifled a laugh, poorly. " _Surely_ ," he levered himself off the bed, "there's no one in this castle stupid enough to knock on that door tonight. Even the dog knows better."

"I'm sure it's important," she said, reasonably, as he tugged the sheet free and wrapped it around his waist. "Aren't you going to put on clothes?"

"They knocked on the door," he said, darkly, "they can wrestle with the consequences," and managed to make it down the stairs without tripping.

Of the emotions that cycled through Bull's face when Cullen opened the door — including concern, surprise and amusement — he was sure the lascivious grin was the one he was least likely to forget, even if it only appeared briefly before the huge man coughed and collected himself. Torrem stood next to him, with what seemed like half his arm inside Bull's hand. Next to Torrem sat Hawke.

"He said," Bull explained carefully, eyes laughing, "that it was very, _very_ important."

"Give us a few minutes," Cullen said, and shut the door.

"Haleth and Cullen just need to wrap up some, uh... grown up stuff," Bull was muffled but not at all inaudible.

"I _know_ what sex is," responded a small voice.

"Really? _Asit tal-eb_."

Cullen wasn't sure what that meant, but the qunari's relief was palpable.

When he'd pinned Haleth's sleeve for her, and pulled on breeches and a shirt while she fastened the ingeniously fitted metal clasps Vivienne's tailor had devised, he returned to the bottom of the stairs. After a moment's hesitation, Torrem had carefully slipped past him in the narrow space. Then Bull, wearing a serious expression, had grabbed his shoulder to keep him from leaving immediately.

And so by the time Cullen made it back to the top of the stone steps, a minute later, it was to find Haleth standing nervously by the bed as Torrem surveyed the room from just beyond the stairs, hugging himself tightly.

The boy was thin, and Cullen wondered if that was from malnutrition, or stress — or both. Admittedly, it would have been hard for him not to look thin in nothing but a pair of leggings and one of Haleth's shirts, cinched at the waist by a Dalish-woven leather belt. The belt had an empty loop on one side that perhaps had once held a small knife. Did he have anything left from his clan but the clothes on his back? Haleth hadn't mentioned, and Cullen hadn't thought to ask. The leggings seemed a little small. Had he grown out of them in just the few weeks he'd been with her? When did elven boys have their growth spurt? Did they? He would have to ask her. He would have to ask many things.

Nervously, gently, Haleth broke the pregnant silence. "Torrem?"

The child didn't answer.

"Maybe this isn't quite what he expected your bedroom to look like, love," Cullen said softly. "Or you."

Haleth looked up at the stained glass and the upholstered furniture, down at her Skyhold silks, and shook her head. " _Da'len_ ," she knelt in front of him, "It's still me."

From behind, Cullen watched the young elf nod in understanding. "Now," Haleth went on, "What did you want to tell me?"

Torrem rubbed his arms. "Your clan is... _weird_."

She smiled. "Is that all?"

"No."

Cullen watched her smile fade, and Torrem's shoulders shake, and felt his own stomach clench protectively when the child's first sob rang out.

"Oh, _da'len_ ," Haleth pulled him to her and rose in one graceful movement. "I'm so sorry." Cullen stripped the blanket from the bed and draped it around her and Torrem as she installed herself on the couch with the shivering, shuddering boy on her lap. "It's hard," she murmured, as he sat carefully on the other end, "I know, it's so hard." He watched her run her fingers soothingly up and down the child's ear, and tried to memorize the gesture. "It gets easier. You're safe here. You'll find a new clan. A new home. You're safe."

It seemed like Torrem sobbed brokenly for an entire age, but Cullen was neither surprised at the length of time nor that it should feel even longer. As he quieted, Haleth reached across the couch to grasp her husband's sleeve and pull him closer. He put his arm around her shoulders, but left the blanket where it was, a shield, if only nominal, between him and Torrem.

Who, Cullen realized, was watching him. He looked back at the young elf with what he hoped was a non-threatening expression as the boy's wide, wet eyes inspected him more thoroughly than a spymaster.

"Haleth said you have bad dreams, too," Torrem said.

Cullen could feel her — the leader of the Inquisition, the Herald of Andraste and the Chosen of Mythal — holding her breath.

"Yes. I've had them for a long time."

"Did someone hurt you?"

He nodded. "Bad spirits came into some of the people in... my clan. They made those people hurt the others. And some of them hurt me. But I don't have the dreams as much as I used to." He looked up and caught her gaze, one corner of his mouth curling upward. "It's better when Haleth's around."

He'd barely finished the sentence when Torrem buried his face in Haleth's shirt and began to sob again. "Torrem!" she sounded on the verge of tears herself, and Cullen squeezed her shoulder reflexively. "Talk to me, _da'len_. Tell me."

His throat hitched several more times before he could draw a complete breath. With his face still hidden in the blanket, he stammered "I d-don't want to find my own clan! I want to be in yours."

Haleth made a soft, strangled sound, going stiff as stone under Cullen's arm. This time, she couldn't pull away from him, curl up, and hide how much she wanted this. But this time, Cullen knew _exactly_ what they were going to do.

"Nobody wants me in their clan," Torrem whispered. "Not even you."

He raised one hand to stroke his wife's cheek. "Yes, we do."

Haleth turned into his hand, staring at him. He'd poured every ounce of sincerity he could into the words, hoping she would understand the things too complicated to say in front of Torrem. That he wasn't sacrificing his own happiness. That this wasn't the beginning of the end of the two of them, but the start of something new and serendipitously perfect. "Of course we do."

"R-really?" the boy whispered.

Haleth took a shuddering breath in and out, tears sliding down her own face. "Gods above and below," she swore, another failure of three years' effort to erase such phrases from her vocabulary, and buried her face in Torrem's tawny hair, "yes. Yes, we do."

She kissed Torrem's forehead. Cullen kissed her cheek.

"I... can stay with you?"

"Yes. With me _and_ Cullen." She took his wrist, turning it palm up, and pulled his hand towards Torrem.

Torrem considered this, expression blank.

"He's very, very important to me, _da'len_."

Now it was Cullen's turn to hold his breath as Torrem raised his left arm — the newly healed one, he realized, and wished he hadn't. They touched, fingertip to fingertip, and then the boy slid his small palm into Cullen's calloused one.

"Thank you, Torrem," Cullen whispered, not entirely trusting his own voice, as he closed his fingers gently around the child's hand.

Torrem relaxed into the two of them, exhausted by emotion. "I can stay with you."

Haleth sighed, kissed his forehead again, gently stroked his ear. Cullen watched her, as he had not really allowed himself in a long time, and decided immediately that watching his wife hold a child in her arms was something he would never tire of.

After Torrem had fallen asleep, Cullen tucked his arm back under the blanket and used his newly free hand to set about drying his face.

"Commander _Cullen_ , are you —"

"No. I don't know what you're talking about."

She said nothing, very pointedly.

"You know," he wiped his hand on his breeches, "usually, when two people acquire a child, at least one of them gets to come first _eeyouch_!"

"Shhh!"

"That _hurt_."

Strong fingers gripped his chin and pulled him down to a kiss. "I _love_ you," she sighed when they parted.

"But... you're still worried," he teased.

" _Yes_." She rubbed his thigh where she'd slammed her fist into it. "Are we doing the right thing? For him? For us? For _you_ , _ma'vehnan_?"

"It's all the same thing, now."

"It is," she said, suddenly hoarse, but a smile playing at the corner of her mouth, "we're a family."

"And you can be happy about that," he laughed, raising his hand to dry her cheek. "We're going to be alright. You know what Bull told me when he dropped Torrem off?"

* * *

"I don't suppose there's a chance of that not being described to the Chargers?"

"What, that you've been slacking off on sit-ups when we aren't around to intimidate you with our glistening physique? Your secret's safe with me."

"Bull —"

The giant man raised a hand placatingly and his expression lost its teasing edge. "Sorry, sorry. Look. It doesn't take a big brain to guess what's going on between you and the Boss. Haleth can teach him to be a part of society, you can't, and you're not sure if you'll be able to stand it. I get it. The idea of becoming your version of a Tamassran is enough, but if I couldn't teach the kid about the Qun..." He shook his head. "I just want to make sure you're looking at this from the right angle."

"Alright —"

"So, Haleth can teach him his place," Bull pressed a fingertip to Cullen's chest, "but you can teach him his role."

"I'm not sure what you —"

Bull looked just a little exasperated, "I thought you figured it out in the courtyard. The way he looked at your sword."

Cullen waited.

Bull shook his head again, smiling. "Then take it from somebody who's been spending a lot of time around the kid. You've got a little _bas-karasaad_ on your hands."

"What's a —"

* * *

"— _Bas-karasaad_?"

"Turns out," Cullen told her, face splitting uncontrollably into a grin, "Our son wants to learn to fight."


End file.
